


A great man in his pride

by templemarker



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-08 03:53:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4289841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/templemarker/pseuds/templemarker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was a great loss to Barrayar. He was an unspeakable loss to Gregor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A great man in his pride

**Author's Note:**

  * For [100demons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/100demons/gifts).



> Compliant with everything up to and particularly including _Cryoburn_.

Gregor is certain he's the first to hear of the Viceroy's passing. 

The news isn't public knowledge; it won't be, certainly not until Miles...and Mark are informed. He's not entirely sure he could handle a conversation with Miles, much less both of them, so he's left that task to one of his trusted subordinates. Gregor knows he's shirking duty by not directly talking to Miles. The Viceroy would not approve. 

Aral. Aral wouldn't approve. The name is strange in Gregor's mind; he could count on his hands the number of times he's used Aral's name instead of one of his many titles, as an adult. When he was young, very young, it was different. During the Regency, Gregor was isolated sufficiently from governance that his personal relationship with Aral precluded his professional one. Aral was more of an uncle-figure, almost a father-figure, but always keeping some reserve. Aral always knew what Gregor recognizes now: that Gregor's fealty to Barrayar and its Empire supersedes any filial relationship, even parental love.

It was a slow lesson, being taught by Aral that Gregor would always be both apart from and present in any room of Barrayarans he was in. Gregor certainly hadn't wanted to learn it, but Aral was a patient if remonstrative teacher. Aral knew what it was like, had known it well before he became Regent. He tried to impart that to Gregor as best as he could, but there is no match for practical experience. 

He never complained about it to Aral; oh, he did at times to Miles, and even on one memorable occasion to Ivan. Most often to Cordelia, who seemed to be perpetually amused that the Barrayar and its client planets could run themselves at all. But never to Aral. It was necessary to their working relationship, and allowed whatever of their personal relationship to stay intact. 

And Aral never complained to him, not once in the nearly fifteen years he acted as Regent, the many more he served as Prime Minister, private advisor, and Viceroy. Not even when he had every reason to do so. 

Gregor learned so many things, nearly everything from Aral, but the greatest of those were duty, discipline, and patience. 

Now he's gone. And there's an emptiness inside Gregor that seems cavernous and infinite. 

Gregor knew he'd spent more time with Aral, learning and managing the Empire, than Miles had ever had the opportunity. When he was younger, after Miles had tracked him down, he had felt guilty about that, as though he'd stolen Miles' father away from him. It was many years before he'd understood that Miles didn't exactly feel like he'd missed out on something. But Gregor suspects that Aral thought often of what he was missing; something Gregor grasps now as he and Laisa talk more regularly about children. 

One day Gregor will have to pass on all his knowledge, everything he learned from Aral, onto his heir. Like everything in Gregor's life, he'll be following in Aral's footsteps through this, too. How do you balance the education, the experience necessary to rule with paternal love? Gregor and Aral struggled with it even up to last week, when they had their regularly scheduled vid conversation. Aral asked some pointed questions about the internecine gang fights which resisted suppression in the southern provinces. Gregor had no good answers to give--it had been a problem long before either he or Aral had come to rule--and urgently needed Aral's advice on the incorporation of delegates from Komarr and Sergyar, but Aral couldn't be persuaded from his topic of choice. 

They bickered, in the ultra-formal way they had developed to fight with one another. Cordelia had taken the vid console over just as Gregor was saying icily, "No, _you_ don't understand, Viceroy, the Vor are restive and need to be brought to task--" She smiled at him, chatted idly about what had happened since the previous week when they'd spoken, made some pointed remarks about the state of Gregor's health and nutrition. He'd cooled down, and so had Aral, and they were able to keep going without lapsing into formality again.

Gregor and Aral had parted on friendly terms--they had learned very early that it never helped anything to leave a disagreement on the table--and chatted about Laisa and Vorbarr Sultana in springtime and the potential of children, soon. Looking down, Gregor saw on his chronometer that he had been scheduled to speak with Aral again tomorrow. 

It all felt so unfinished. There was more to be done. Gregor still felt so young, and the Empire was a great knot of a thing, never fully unraveling but never neat and ordered, either. 

Aral had given him the tools and the stature and the discipline to rule, but without him, the Emperorship felt like having the training wheels ripped off finally and suddenly and having to keep going without them. He was a great loss to Barrayar. He was an unspeakable loss to Gregor. 

In the other room, Laisa was waiting to comfort him. The vid console was waiting, to bear messages to Miles and Ivan, Lady Alys and Simon. There was a state funeral to be arranged, public mourning and some civic remembrance to consider. Barrayar was waiting, to hear the story of its lost Count Vorkosigan and for Gregor to do his duty. 

All Gregor wanted was to sit in his chair, at the table where he and Aral played endless game after game of chess, and try to remember everything Aral had taught him, because it was all on Gregor now. It really was, this time. There were no outs, no opportunities to rely on someone else. He carried the weight of the Empire on his shoulders now, with no one to share the burden. 

Gregor is the Emperor. He is dutiful, he has sacrificed. He will lead amidst this loss, he will hold his head high and carry Aral for once, instead of the other way around. He won't shirk his responsibilities to Miles or the rest of his small family or the Empire for much longer. But he hangs his head into his palms, wishing he could weep instead of feeling this cold dark thing in his chest, where Aral had been.

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this story comes from W.B. Yeats' poem prosaically titled "Death":
> 
> _NOR dread nor hope attend  
>  A dying animal;  
> A man awaits his end  
> Dreading and hoping all;  
> Many times he died,  
> Many times rose again.  
> A great man in his pride  
> Confronting murderous men  
> Casts derision upon  
> Supersession of breath;  
> He knows death to the bone --  
> Man has created death._
> 
> "Many times he rose again." I could think of no better eulogy for Aral Vorkosigan.


End file.
